Wild Collected Big Headed Ants (Pheidole)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ต.ค. 2021
- I found a wild colony of Pheidole sp. and used a Manual Aspirator to secure them in the field. This video will talk about the capture, some of their biology, and show you them moving into a formicarium as well as some feeding.
It has occurred to me that some people may get the wrong idea here and believe that I indiscriminately destroy wild colonies of ants. Please read this comment. I collect entire wild colonies when I determine that the queens, brood, and majority of the population can be secured without harm. You have to be responsible about it. Otherwise I leave them be. This is typically only possible with very small ant species, ants living directly under a rock/log/etc, or inside a log such as Camponotus species. In this case, the entire colony was housed under a flower pot’s collection dish that had been left upside down and untouched for quite some time. Had I not removed the colony they would have been killed by the Advion WDG application I was using around a clients home to control a massive population of invasive Argentine ants.
What you have sir is knowledge and for people like myself who REALLY miss the old NOVA shows please keep the content coming. Thank you.
I am glad to hear you say that!
Great video man, love to see this type of content. Zero filler, just ants. Subbed!
Thank you!
This is great content. I've always enjoyed ants since I was a child and have always wanted an ant farm to keep. I'm in the Texas Hill Country, and I have a colony of Pogonomyrmex barbatus, I believe, in my backyard. I'm very protective of it and watch it daily. Over summer it was flooded and I thought it had disappeared, as I didn't see any activity from it for weeks. It was quite large and very active. Then, I noticed it coming back around late September. I was very happy to see that. I'm hoping there is still a queen in there, as I've missed them. I'm hoping next season I can find a queen to start my own little colony to watch. The thought does make me a bit nervous and skeptical as it will be new to me, but I hope to be successful. Winter will give me a chance to prepare, I hope, and I'm sure I will have plenty of questions and it will be nice to see more of yours. Thank you for sharing your colonies with us! I'll definitely be keeping up with your channel.
We all start somewhere in Ant Keeping! Keep an eye out for their nuptial flights in spring and early summer. The queens are easy to catch if you see them after flights digging new nests. Just make sure they can’t run down the hole they are digging when you go to collect them.
if you want to you can join the Ants & Antkeeping discord server and ask the people there on how to dig up and collect the colony. BEWARE: POGONOMYRMEX BARBATUS ARE STINGING ANTS - CAREFUL
This was a really cool video! I love the look of the tarheel nests ❤️
Thanks! I am glad you liked the video. Tarheel has been at it for a long time and they have fantastic designs.
@@TheAnttarium yeah i really want to try one for myself at some point
Pheidoles are the cutest ants. I like the majors with their oversized heads. I always touch the head of majors of pheidoles in my planting pot. They then runaway inside the colony.
That are hilariously timid for such a capable ant
@@TheAnttarium There's one species of pheidoles here that is dark in colour and extremely aggressive. When I stepped near a wall outside the shop, some minors and soldiers angrily came out from the gap and began searching around. There's also a black crazy ants colony near them and the crazy ants never dare to trouble even a single minor. Even my father upon seeing the majors said these look like the same ants who use to aggressively bite his hands when he use to plant some plants outside the house when he was small.
Great video 👍🏽
Thank you!
You have cephalotes!!!!!! Okay you gotta do a video about them!!! I've been trying to catch my native one (cephalotes rohweri) but they are rare as hell here.
Cephalotes texanus is really hard to find here too. Hopefully the colony I have will thrive. They are on my list to make some videos on!
I WISH I HAD A PHEIDOLE
QUEEN
Lovely Video~! Always very informative and interesting to watch. Thank you for sharing this content with us
Thank you for the compliment! In the future a less traumatic way to make ants evacuate a space like that would be to use the Aspirator to blow your breath into the voids. This typically results in an alarmed state and they will attempt to quickly leave. Good save on getting them out though!
@@TheAnttarium Yea that would have been best, but it was a fold up table and they were in the smallest of places. So hard to get out. I also didnt think about saving the colony as i saw them as a pest at that time. Learning about ants has started to change my view on them
Nice vedio
Nice
Thank you!
i really hope everybody knows the meaning of wild collected ant colonies. International ant keeping is sometimes a really, really weird thing.
Well I hope “wild collected colony” means the same thing to everyone. It’s meant to distinguish between a colony founded in captivity and one established in the wild.
Nice ill have to make a manual aspirator!!!
They are easy to make and many lab supply businesses also sell them. Unfortunately BioQuip shutdown this March. They were the center of the universe for entomologists in the USA. 75 years of operating.
@@TheAnttarium hardest part might be finding a suitable container for me i think.. id prefer to try make one
@@TheAnttarium ahh thats bad news on a place like that closing down :( it can be hard finding stuff in Australia.. ebay is sadly our best option alot of the time lol
Do you ever collect Atta texana? I (like everyone else) have always wanted to keep a leaf cutter species, but it seems like it would be daunting to keep them happy and healthy. Great videos, BTW!
I haven’t tried keeping Atta texana yet. They are very high maintenance. I am glad you like the videos!
They pretty cool
Sheesh! , Tropical fire Ants have Big headed Majors but the Pheidole one's are Larger!
They don’t call them big headed ants for nothing!
@@TheAnttarium Majors?
Yes the common name for Pheidole is “Big Headed Ants” due to their Majors
Fluon they dont like but can cross if they want to.
Talcum does trip em up though...
btw < 2mm ants may drown if fluon runs down and gathers into a drop. Guess how i found out.
Hey Where did u buy the ant sucker thing?
A cool way I think is do a raffle maybe on a colony that's " established " for your local Texans. I myself would definitely put a bid in, currently in San Antonio. Maybe you have one for a beginner like myself to start off with?
Okay to make sure I understand, you want to raffle for a video on an established colony of a Texas native ant species that is good for beginners?
@@TheAnttarium There's one extremely aggressive species of pheidoles that is dark in colour. It's not afraid of anything. I stepped near a wall beside a shop and the minors and soldiers immediately came out and started searching. A black crazy ant colony is near it and they never dare to trouble even a single minor of them. Even my father upon seeing the majors said these are the same ants that use to attack his hands angrily whenever he use to plant some plants outside the house when he was a child.
I caught a black big headed ants in a test tube and they have 4 workers and a bunch of brew
Nice find!
DUDE, why have i not seen this tool before
You mean a manual Aspirator? Probably because it’s mostly used by entomologists and other bug enthusiasts. There are variations of it online that you can buy. Unfortunately BioQuip is closing down.
I did pest control for about 15 years as well.....specifically Termite control. Ironic we keep ants alive as a hobby.
Funny how that happens lol
Hey! Where did you get that manual aspirator? I can’t find it anywhere. Thanks!
It is from BioQuip. They have a minimum order policy just so you know.
@@TheAnttarium Thanks man!
What species of pheidole is this
Lived in Indiana I only remember seeing two types of Big head ants but they were small size and small colony size The ones I seen the most were yellow maybe 100 to 300 population size and Im being generous// Live In Ph now And can play with many types here Carebara i consider just big headed ants are here but the crazy ants are ruining the diversity
I am a Polish ant keeper I would like to know more about pogonomyrmex and other species from your region if you can please write to me on Messenger
I do not see an option on your channel to send you a message
@@TheAnttarium You can write to me on Messenger
@@TheAnttarium My name is as it appears on YT
Okay I created a FB page for the channel. You can find it on messenger as “TheAntTarium”. It won’t allow the page to solicit new messages. Send me your questions there
When you say "Collected" it means "destroyed" natural nest?
That’s a point of view you and others can take. I collect entire wild colonies when I determine that the queens, brood, and majority of the population can be secured without harm. You have to be responsible about it. Otherwise I leave them be. This is typically only possible with very small ant species, ants living directly under a rock/log/etc, or inside a log such as Camponotus species. In this case, the entire colony was housed under a flower pot’s collection dish that had been left upside down and untouched for quite some time. Had I not removed the colony they would have been killed by the Advion WDG application I was using around the home to stop a massive population of Argentine ants.